1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data processing, and more particularly, to an apparatus for processing a data stream having a hierarchical layer structure and including encoded data sets and raw data sets and method thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In current television specifications, a television program includes image frames and associated user data, such as an active format description. The user data is randomly inserted into a number of layers, such as the sequence layer, picture layer, and the group of picture layer. When decoding the television program in the conventional television program processing approach, however, the above-mentioned data need not be decoded because the data related to displaying the television program is not involved in decoding the image frames of the television program. As a result, when displaying the television program, the displaying device needs to retrieve the aforementioned data from the decoder.
Furthermore, the data is randomly allocated in the above-mentioned layers. So, the displaying device needs to spend considerable time in finding the data. Therefore, the conventional processing approach is very inconvenient and has low efficiency. In addition, the data not involved in decoding the encoded video frames are still fed into the decoder. This wastes the computation resources of the decoder and greatly degrades the performance of the decoder.
Thus, there is a need for an apparatus and method that provides an easier and more convenient way of processing the television program having user data incorporated therein.